Neven Mimica,Member of the Commission.– Mr President, there is only one week to go before the UN Financing for Development Conference in Addis Ababa. Thank you for today’s opportunity to exchange views on this, and also on the related Parliament report on tax avoidance and tax evasion. The Addis conference is a priority for the European Union. We remain fully committed to ensuring its success, as it will be crucial for the outcome of the Post-2015 Summit in New York and the Climate Conference in Paris later this year.

I am particularly grateful for the active engagement of Parliament throughout the preparatory process, and for your resolution on financing for development, as well as on the global post-2015 development agenda. And I am delighted that six of you will be joining the European Union delegation attending the conference.

President Juncker has mandated High Representative/Vice-President Mogherini and me to represent the European Union in Addis Ababa. Together with the representatives from national governments, we will make sure that the European Union and its Member States continue to speak with one voice in these last crucial stages.

Let me outline the overall principles and expectations that will guide the EU approach. First, Addis must be transformational. We need an ambitious and coherent engagement and agreement, covering all means of implementation: aid, investment and domestic resources, as well as an enabling policy environment. We need a more strategic, more catalytic role for official development assistance to help leverage other means of implementation and maximise their impact.

Second, Addis must promote universality. The old days of North and South, donors and beneficiaries, are over. We need a true global partnership to achieve such a broad agenda. All countries need to act and contribute their fair share – and so does the private sector and civil society. The European Union stands ready to play its full part in implementing the sustainable development goals at home and through our external actions.

Third, Addis must embed strong mutual accountability. We need an integrated, transparent and reliable framework to keep track not only of our financial commitments, but also of overall progress towards achieving the sustainable development goals.

We all have been working hard for an ambitious Addis outcome document, one that reflects EU aspirations and objectives, and respects the Council conclusions of 26 May. The European Union negotiations have been challenging. The latest draft text is a good outcome for the European Union, but the document is not yet agreed. Differences remain on a couple of issues, including on the exact relationship between the Addis conference and the Post-2015 Summit. Negotiations are still ongoing in New York as we speak, and they may continue in Addis.

The European Union has been well prepared and ready to play its constructive and leading role throughout the negotiations and beyond, including through some concrete figures, for instance, EUR 58 billion for official development assistance. This makes the European Union collectively the world’s largest donor. We have recommitted to achieving the official development assistance target of 0.7% of gross national income within the timeframe of the post-2015 agenda, including an even more ambitious effort for least-developed countries. Regrettably, this commitment has not been followed by other developed and emerging donors. EUR 100 billion is the amount we estimate the European Union can mobilise to finance notably infrastructure investments in partner countries through blending by 2020, leveraged through an EU grant component of up to EUR 8 billion.

More than EUR 16 billion will be dedicated to addressing environment and climate change objectives. And EUR 35 billion is a conservative estimate of the annual value of the exports of the least-developed countries to the European Union, which grants them duty-free and quota-free market access.

Let me now come to Parliament’s report on tax evasion and tax avoidance. The Commission concurs with the general analysis of this very comprehensive report. Having exchanged views with rapporteur Schlein on several occasions, I am well aware of the importance Parliament attaches to these issues. I take careful note of your proposed action plan to support developing countries in mobilising more domestic resources. Improved domestic resource mobilisation can indeed significantly contribute to a more sustainable and reliable sourcing of revenue. Adequate administrative capacity of our partner countries’ tax administrations, and their political will to reform, are key in this respect.

Domestic revenue mobilisation and the fight against illicit financial flows, tax evasion and tax avoidance will have an important role in the Addis and New York conferences. The negotiations on the Addis outcome document have been complex on this point. The latest proposal tabled could in our view be considered as a good compromise and reflects most of the issues and actions contained in Parliament’s report.

There are still difficulties around the UN committee on tax, and its upgrading to an intergovernmental body. We clearly support giving developing countries a stronger voice and participation in the definition of the global tax governance agenda – without necessarily creating yet another intergovernmental body. We should focus on the substance, not on taking decisions on the format at this stage of the process.

The Commission is committed to ensuring that the developing countries which have the ambition for reform are supported in this difficult path. As part of a global partnership initiative, we will be organising a side-event on the margins of the Addis conference and are developing a document as a first basis for discussion under the title ‘Collect More – Spend Better’.

Honourable Members, we are close to achieving a very important result, but we cannot yet take it for granted. In Addis and New York we have a unique opportunity to redefine global development cooperation for the years to come. Let us make it count.

Linda McAvan, on behalf of the S&D Group.– Madam President, I would like to thank the Commissioner and the Minister for what they have said tonight. It is vital we get a deal next week in Addis, and I hope the talks tonight in New York are fruitful, because they are going to set the agenda for New York and for Paris. If we do not get a deal there it will be harder in those subsequent conferences.

Now we have already made our position clear on ODA in the Pereira report – Ms Pereira is going to speak in a few moments – but I want to focus on tax tonight. The OECD has estimated that, if we could increase tax revenue by 1% in developing countries, it would be like doubling ODA. So tax is crucial, and that is why we need concrete measures to tackle tax problems. We need companies and individuals to pay their fair share of tax, and some of these concrete measures are in the Schlein report. We need to stamp out illegal practices like trade mis—invoicing, where companies manipulate tax invoices so they do not pay their fair share.

Save the Children has published a report with some shocking figures. In Sub-Saharan Africa, EUR 15 billion a year are lost through these unpaid taxes. That is money that would pay for decent healthcare, and it would pay to tackle childhood malnutrition. I think those who are dodging those taxes need to know that they are literally taking money out of the mouths of babes. To tackle these problems, we need concrete proposals and we have heard some tonight. We need new accountancy rules; we need country-by-country reporting, and it has to be public. Companies must be made to report publicly on what they are doing so that we can track down those who are not paying their fair dues. I hope we will push for that in Addis and in the subsequent talks.

Nathan Gill (EFDD).– Madam President, this report seems to me to be barking up the wrong tree, attempting to solve a peripheral symptom of the real problem in developing nations, that of corruption.

Nigeria is a prime example of how governmental corruption has nurtured an environment of low investor confidence, which has allowed corporations to abuse the free market by investing in the countries with the most disjointed tax evasion laws and ethos. This report states that transparency is the key in holding tax evaders accountable. But is this realistic? These countries are not blessed with the scale of technological advancements we enjoy. So one could argue that this claim is not just far-reaching but also, frankly, counterproductive. Before the issue of tax avoidance can be addressed properly, corruption must be dealt with in developing nations. If you are going to legislate hard on something, it might as well be the root of the evil, rather than the by-product of that evil.

Neven Mimica,Member of the Commission.– Madam President, thank you for your great interest in the financing for development agenda ahead of the Addis conference, and for your valuable ideas, proposals and opinions. I agree that the European Union must keep up its level of ambition and commitments on ODA, including through the implementation of the development effectiveness principles. I also welcome your comments on issues that go beyond ODA. For me, this is exactly where real progress can be made through the post-2015 framework.

On the question of monitoring and follow-up, we must remain ambitious. The European Union already has a comprehensive annual accountability exercise in place to monitor progress. Indeed, the 2015 edition of the report was published last month. But we should also reflect on how we can strengthen that process, within the context of a wider post-2015 monitoring and accountability framework.

At this stage, we must also reflect on what the European Union will do to support the implementation of the financing for development outcome and the post-2015 agenda. We are carefully considering how the European Union’s policies might need to be reviewed to help promote the new agenda. The principle of policy coherence for development becomes more relevant than ever.

The European Union must be ready to deliver on a solid set of actions to implement the post-2015 agenda. This includes a comprehensive approach to supporting domestic resource mobilisation in developing countries and tackling tax avoidance and tax evasion. We will take the actions proposed in Parliament’s report into careful consideration, and we welcome your continued engagement in this regard.